Amazon slaps U.S. sellers with 5% fuel and inflation surcharge

[Blues]

Musk did make a big deal about bots and algorithms prior to the deal so it all may be happening as he wanted or as an acceptable alternative to control.

I am with you I think it will help us and maybe such momentum can be pushed through toward other platforms and their censorship, or lack of, for their own profit.

 

[britechguy]

their censorship, or lack of, for their own profit.

Suppression of expression by the government is censorship.
Suppression of expression by a publisher or broadcaster over what it disseminates is editorial oversight.
Suppression of expression of the wrong thing by oneself is discretion, restraint, and good manners.
Suppression of expression of children by their parents is necessary socialization and good parenting.

I long for the day when social media platforms are treated like the publishers that they are, in actuality. They may not be able to vet everything preemptively, but when anything is quickly pointed out to be demonstrably false . . .

They've refused to take on editorial oversight because it suits them, not because it's impossible to do.

 

[Blues]

It is still censorship even when it is done by a private entity. The moderators and administrators here have system authority to censor us and doing so would still be censorship. Right or wrong suppressing the expression of another is censorship and my point is that the reason these platforms censor anything is for profit and nothing more.

 

[nlinecomputers]

It is still censorship even when it is done by a private entity. The moderators and administrators here have system authority to censor us and doing so would still be censorship. Right or wrong suppressing the expression of another is censorship and my point is that the reason these platforms censor anything is for profit and nothing more.

And how is that a bad thing? Online forums can be held liable for information found on their forums. Disruptive behavior can negatively affect viewership which can affect revenue. If you behave like a troll you can expect to be banned. Just like if I throw a fit in a restaurant they can throw me out and refuse service. You do not have a right to use any service at will.

 

[britechguy]

It is still censorship even when it is done by a private entity.

We're simply going to have to agree to disagree. It has been conventional for private entities to limit/determine precisely what is put out under their "masthead"/"letterhead" since long before I was born. That has never routinely been called censorship.

As far as I'm concerned the definition of censorship is suppression of speech by a government. Nothing else qualifies.

When it comes to suppressing expression for moral or religious reasons, and whether by private individuals, entities, or churches, I prefer the now very seldom used verb bowdlerize.

 

[britechguy]

Online forums can be held liable for information found on their forums.

Can they? That's a serious question, as the last time I was researching this the legal precedents at the time were saying they couldn't, which I found ridiculous because online forums are publishers whether they think they are or not.

I'd love to have more up-to-date citations that prove me utterly wrong.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Can they? That's a serious question, as the last time I was researching this the legal precedents at the time were saying they couldn't, which I found ridiculous because online forums are publishers whether they think they are or not.

I'd love to have more up-to-date citations that prove me utterly wrong.

Honestly it’s not something that has been fully resolved. There’s gonna be lawsuits and the fear of that is why some things are being blocked.

 

[Blues]

@nlinecomputers & @britechguy I am not saying censorship is all bad nor am I saying that these companies don't have the right to censor. My complaint is the lies in their reasoning for enforcement, inconsistent enforcement, and the shifting or business the current level and type of enforcement is.

 

[nlinecomputers]

@nlinecomputers & @britechguy I am not saying censorship is all bad nor am I saying that these companies don't have the right to censor. My complaint is the lies in their reasoning for enforcement, inconsistent enforcement, and the shifting or business the current level and type of enforcement is.

Well personally I have no problem with the rare times such companies do censor themselves or their users. The problem is when it doesn’t occur. One only has to look at Facebook and its role in politics for that.

 

[Blues]

Well personally I have no problem with the rare times such companies do censor themselves or their users. The problem is when it doesn’t occur. One only has to look at Facebook and its role in politics for that.

Those last two sentences seem a bit of a contradiction of concerns for me if we are focused on politics. For Facebook or Twitter to censor politically with a bias while having a significant impact politics is dangerous. This is different than politically driven societal actions such as any recent violent marches/riots which may be driven by politics or political divides is not that same as politics which I would agree to active control by platforms being used to stop such things or at least minimize.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Facebook is actively being manipulated by foreign funded propaganda whose sole purpose is to influence our elections. That needs to stop. You can say and post things on Facebook that are totally prohibited under Federal Election Laws in other media like TV or newspapers. And Facebook makes money by fostering the system.

edited for detail

 

[Blues]

Yes that is another beast ut extends beyond just the platform and is very difficult to fight and the profiteering on anything political is another issue.

 

[britechguy]

Yes that is another beast ut extends beyond just the platform and is very difficult to fight and the profiteering on anything political is another issue.

Strictly speaking, you're absolutely correct. But I care a lot more about what wildly popular international platforms like Facebook allow to be promulgated out there than I do about what Truth Social does.

There will always be venues, physical, publishing, and cyber, for "like thinkers" of any ilk. It's when mainstream major publishers allow the fringe to have any significant voice that "appears legitimate" that the trouble starts and builds. As @nlinecomputers has noted, we have rules and have had rules about what can be done in print media and broadcast media. These should be similarly extended to cyber media. Someone should be "minding the shop," not just sitting there and allowing the most outrageous disinformation to be distributed unimpeded. And even some things that aren't disinformation need to be looked at, too. That happens in conventional publishing all the time. It's an appropriate societal guardrail.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Facebook is actively being manipulated by foreign funded propaganda whose sole purpose is to influence our elections. That needs to stop. You can say and post things on Facebook that are totally prohibited under Federal Election Laws in other media like TV or newspapers. And Facebook makes money by fostering the system.

edited for detail

Because Facebook isn't a "media" company, as soon as it's legally forced to become one it's forced to take on "editorial oversight" and then is subject to the laws that govern newspapers etc.

This applies to all social media networks as presently constituted. And yes, advertisements are being purchased by hostile foreign powers to manipulate our elections. I'm glad to see you reporting this here, because honestly I'm REALLY ANNOYED with how everyone seems to think the Russian manipulation in the 2016 and 2020 elections were some huge conspiracy. They were not, they were simply Russia buying ads on Facebook. No more... no less was required.

Because that system is that easily manipulated, and the people of this country are that stupid.

 

[britechguy]

Because Facebook isn't a "media" company, as soon as it's legally forced to become one it's forced to take on "editorial oversight" and then is subject to the laws that govern newspapers etc.

And, therein, lies the problem. The whole of cyberspace has been the "Wild, Wild, West" since the day of its inception and no one in a position to regulate it has ever bothered. Contrast that to both media companies and telecommunications, the former of which became regulated over a long period with additions as necessary, and the latter of which became regulated very early in its existence.

I am so sick to death of people who believe that laws, rules, and regulations spring up, unbidden, from some mythical "Department of Bureaucracy Creation," rather than coming into existence, usually slowly and with a lot of deliberation, in response to clear problems that they're trying to solve. We all know that the actual results can vary, but we also know that allowing the untenable to continue unabated is much, much worse.

The unwillingness to look at the world, and its technologies, and how they're being used and abused as they really are is the worst form of willful blindness and it's having devastating results. And a huge part of that is because (in the USA) decades have been spent actively cultivating a voter base that is actively antagonistic to facts, expert opinion, and the application of logic and reason to problem-solving. Critical thinking skills as part of most of the body politic has seemingly vanished. No one put it better, with a real world example of the time, than this:

The terrible state of public education has paid huge dividends in ignorance. Huge. We now have a country that can be told blatant lies — easily checkable, blatant lies — and I’m not talking about the covert workings of the CIA. When we have a terrorist attack, on September 11, 2001 with 19 men — 15 of them are Saudis — and five minutes later the whole country thinks they’re from Iraq — how can you have faith in the public? This is an easily checkable fact. The whole country is like the O.J. Simpson jurors.
~ Fran Lebowitz in Ruminator Magazine interview with Susannah McNeely (Aug/Sept 2005)

Things have not gotten the slightest bit better, they've gotten much worse, since 2005.

 

[Blues]

I am not entirely in disagreement with you @britechguy I would say our differences are in details and maybe in which direction we think things should progress.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy Combine all that with in the US at least, the general public simply not caring about the abuses large businesses perform, while being over the moon upset if the government does only a small fraction of the same.

This is double true of the political right, who by and large seem to accept corporate enslavement as a fact of life. But the same group will scream "socialism" for any "populist" policy that seeks to regulate things.

Thank you GOP for under funding our schools, and raising several generations of complete morons that are now too stupid to see the harm happening to them daily. Thank you DNC for claiming to care when you really don't, and throw some crumbs off the table for the unwashed masses while you laugh all the way to the bank.

I'm more than done with all of it honestly.

I cart around a Google owned tracking device everywhere I go... if the US government had that power people would be utterly incensed.

 

[britechguy]

I'm more than done with all of it honestly.

And on this part, and only this part, we are diametrically opposed.

I have never faced an election where there wasn't a "lesser of two evils" at a minimum. And, in today's US political climate, one choice is suboptimal while the other is disasterous. I make a bee line to the polls to vote for suboptimal under those circumstances.

No one ever put it better than this:
Voting isn't marriage, it's public transport. You are not waiting for "the one" who is absolutely perfect. You are getting on the bus. And if there isn't one going exactly to your destination, you don't stay home and sulk. You take the one going closest to where you want to be.
~ Commenter Mrsmarv, on New York Times article, Bernie or Biden. Period., March 2, 2020.

[And, if the truth be told, it's only a very recent development in the history of marriage where romantic love has been considered to be the ultimate determiner of partner. And when it is, that illusion of "absolutely perfect" will fall. It may not lead to divorce or unhappiness, or it may, but no one ever put it better than Fran Lebowitz, again:
Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone you really saw.]

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy It's a difference without distinction when sub-optimal is the same disaster just on a slightly longer time scale. I'm not interested in forwarding these issues off to my kids to solve down the road.

 

[nlinecomputers]

I'm more than done with all of it honestly.

I have never faced an election where there wasn't a "lesser of two evils" at a minimum. And, in today's US political climate, one choice is suboptimal while the other is disasterous. I make a bee line to the polls to vote for suboptimal under those circumstances.

I'm a bit in both camps. I have often skipped voting because there wasn't any point. Until Trump came upon the scene I either had not voted for President or voted for the Libertarian candidate, which was more of a protest vote than an actual vote. I was able to vote for the first time for Reagan's second term. I voted for Clinton's first term and didn't vote again when I voted libertarian in George W. Bush second term. I voted libertarian in O'bama's first term and didn't bother in the second term. I voted for Hillary and Biden both as anti-Trump votes.